Tuesday, June 30, 2009

School for Scandal: The Chicago Way

Chicago political corruption (which has been exported to the nation's capital) has been generally well publicized, but who knew that it would compromise graduate school admission--in this instance a top-tier law school?
What does it cost to get an unqualified student into the University of Illinois law school? Five jobs for graduating law students, suggest internal e-mails released Thursday. The documents show for the first time efforts to seek favors -- in this case, jobs -- for admissions, the most troubling evidence yet of how Illinois' entrenched system of patronage crept into the state's most prestigious public university. They also detail the law school's system for handling "Special Admits," students backed by the politically connected, expanding the scope of a scandal prompted by a Chicago Tribune investigation.
Most of us who contemplate law school in general concentrate on practicing for the LSAT, writing good application essays, and burnishing other credentials. Columnist John Kass, who has also been following the Inspector General scandal, writes that this latest scandal has the "old school" stink:
If there were any doubts that Illinois is the diseased poster child of political corruption, those doubts are long gone. Friday's story in the Tribune exposes a widening pattern of corruption at the University of Illinois. This time, with the trading of law school admission for patronage-style jobs. So any doubts about where this state stands should be erased. What remains is the smell.
The state stinks, from Rich Daley's City Hall to Springfield, and now all that's left, for taxpayers, is the smell and the stain. Corruption and patronage, once thought to be the exclusive province of greasy politicians, now reach into the law school of the state's premier public university...
If you've read carefully here and elsewhere, you know about corrupt politicians, corrupt cops, corrupt businesses. But the last line of defense for the corrupt are kinky judges. How do you get such judges? You begin in law school, with university officials establishing corrupt practices, leveraging unqualified lawyers into jobs. Lawyers become judges, don't they?
According to Obama advisor David Axelrod, says Kass, political patronage "is the grease that helps government run smoothly."

Monday, June 29, 2009

New Haven Firefighters 20, Sotomayor 0


An additional question for Judge Sotomayor: What do you think of the majority's reasoning in Ricci v. Destefano?
The Supreme Court today narrowly ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who said they were denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision by Judge Sonia Sotomayor and others that had come to play a large role in the consideration of her nomination for the high court.
The city had thrown out the results of a promotion test because no African Americans and only two Hispanics would have qualified for promotions. It said it feared a lawsuit from minorities under federal laws that said such "disparate impacts" on test results could be used to show discrimination.
In effect, the court was deciding when avoiding potential discrimination against one group amounted to actual discrimination against another.
The court's conservative majority said in a 5 to 4 vote that is what happened in New Haven.
Addressing the disparate impact question, Justice Kennedy for the majority wrote that...
[T]here is no evidence —let alone the required strong basis in evidence—that the tests were flawed because they were not job-related or because other, equally valid and less discriminatory tests were available to the City. Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions. The City’s discarding the test results was impermissible under Title VII, and summary judgment is appropriate for petitioners on their disparate-treatment claim.
The full, 93-page opinion (including the dissent) can be found here.

ABC News quotes Karen Torre, the lawyer for the 19 white and one Hispanic firefighter(s), as follows:
I think the import of the decision is that cities cannot bow to politics and pressure and lobbying by special interest groups, or act to achieve racial quotas. If the test is job-related, especially in a dangerous occupation, then the fact that more African Americans pass, or more Hispanics pass, or more whites pass, isn't sufficient grounds to ignore the results of an occupational test.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Throwing Away The Key


From the Washington Post: Another example of the Bush White House shredding the Constitution and assaulting civil liberties. Oh, wait...
Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.
Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that an order, which would bypass Congress, could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said
After months of internal debate over how to close the military facility in Cuba, White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the prison by the president's January deadline.


Friday, June 26, 2009

Congress Refuses To Investigate ACORN

The U.S. House of Representatives, a/k/a the "people's house," is apparently abdicating its oversight responsibility when it comes to probing widespread allegations of vote fraud:
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. has backed off his plan to investigate purported wrongdoing by the liberal activist group ACORN, saying "powers that be" put the kibosh on the idea.
Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat, earlier bucked his party leaders by calling for hearings on accusations the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) has committed crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style "protection" racket.
Perhaps he is concerned more about legal issues closer to home. Rep. Conyers wife, Detroit City Councilor Monica Conyers, today pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Supreme Court Puts An End To Meritless Lawsuit Over Non-Scandal

To the dismay of no one but perhaps Vanity Fair readers and MSNBC staff and their rapidly disappearing viewership, the High Court has denied an appeal in the over-hyped CIA leak case:
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to revive a lawsuit that accused former Vice President Dick Cheney and Bush administration officials Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby of exposing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.
The justices, without comment, turned away an appeal by Plame, who worked at the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Virginia, and her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Plame and Wilson sued the three officials, along with former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in 2006. The suit accused the men of leaking Plame’s identity to reporters in retaliation for a New York Times opinion piece by Wilson questioning then-President George W. Bush’s basis for invading Iraq.
Keep in mind that despite all the beltway hoopla, no one has ever been charged criminally under the federal statute for "outing" Plame's identity.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Government-Run Healthcare Unconstitutional?

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece suggesting that privacy factors may deem socialized medicine unconstitutional:
Is a government-dominated health-care system unconstitutional? A strong case can be made for that proposition, based on the same "right to privacy" that underlies such landmark Supreme Court decisions as Roe v. Wade.
The details of this year's health-care reform bill are still being hammered out. But the end result is sure to be byzantine in complexity. Washington will have immense say over how, when and through whom Americans are treated. Moreover, despite the administration's public pronouncements about painless cuts in wasteful spending, only the most credulous believe that some form of government-directed health-care rationing can be avoided as a means of controlling costs.
The Supreme Court created the right to privacy in the 1960s and used it to strike down a series of state and federal regulations of personal (mostly sexual) conduct. This line of cases began with Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 (involving marital birth control), and includes the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
Inspector General scandal: Separately, the FBI has opened up an obstruction of justice investigation in the Sacramento scandal that led to the highly suspicious firing of government watchdog Gerald Walpin. Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass observes that that's merely the Chicago way (now renamed the Potomac Way) of doing business:
It's amusing to watch the Washington political establishment feign shock, now that President Barack Obama's reform administration has used a clay foot to vigorously kick one inspector general and boot another out the door.
One inspector general foolishly investigated a friend of the president. Another inspector general audited those juicy bonuses given to AIG executives as part of $700 billion federal bailout of the financial industry...
The use of political muscle may be prohibited in the mythic transcendental fairyland where much of the Obama spin originates, sprouting green and lush, like the never-ending fields of primo Hopium.
But our president is from Chicago. Obama's Media Merlin David Axelrod and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel come right from Chicago Democratic machine boss Mayor Richard Daley. They don't believe in fairies.


Saturday, June 20, 2009

The Morphing of the President

Calling it a "stark legal turnaround," the McClatchy news service notices that more and more, Obama resembles his predecessor when it comes to homeland security:
President Barack Obama is morphing into George W. Bush, as administration attorneys repeatedly adopt the executive-authority and national-security rationales that their Republican predecessors preferred.
In courtroom battles and freedom-of-information fights from Washington, D.C., to California, Obama's legal arguments repeatedly mirror Bush's: White House turf is to be protected, secrets must be retained and dire warnings are wielded as weapons.
"It's putting up a veritable wall around the White House, and it's so at odds with Obama's campaign commitment to more open government," said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a legal watchdog group.
On a separate issue, since ABC is giving the White House an unprecedented free infomercial next week, this development should come as no surprise: "An analysis of contributions to the Obama and McCain campaign shows that ABC employees contributed more than $160,000 to the Obama campaign versus less than $5,000 to the McCain campaign."

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Is A Detainee Just Another Criminal Defendant?

Why didn't the Bush administration push harder to actually try enemy combatants in military tribunals after announcing they were going in that direction? Part of it resulted from legal roadblocks thrown up by "civil liberties" advocates, but perhaps this was another management failure in the previous administration. But as a practical matter, putting terrorists, detainees, or nongovernmental wealth redistributors (whatever euphemism the government currently uses) in civilian court could have dangerous consequences. When the defense lawyers from the ACLU or some large law firm taking the case pro bono (i.e., for free) start flooding the court docket with discovery motions and other excessive pleadings, sensitive information may surface. There have already been instances where documents obtained at trial have found their way to our adversaries. And then, what happens when defense lawyers, as they often do in criminal cases, muddy the waters enough to obtain an acquittal for a detainee who isn't exactly squeaky clean? Not guilty and innocent are two different things.
...[D]espite repeated questioning, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs refused to answer whether the Obama administration will free Ahmed Ghailani if he's found not guilty in court. The Obama administration flew the accused terrorist from Guantanamo to New York yesterday [June 9] to try him for his alleged role in the 1998 embassy bombings.
“I'm not going to get into hypotheticals about how certain cases may or may not play out,” Gibbs said.
The question is important on several levels. If he will be freed, that prompts questions of national security and whether civilian courts are as appropriate as other venues for such trials. If he won't be freed despite being found not guilty that undermines the credibility of the trial,
Again, what is the end game for those taking on these cases? How does that make the country more safe? Aren't there many other worthy causes these lawyers handle that don't involve individuals who have taken up arms against the U.S. or other countries? As Peter Collier and/or David Horowitz once observed, it appears that the freedom of America is being used to undermine America's freedom.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Federal Investigator Fired for Finding Fraud


If the previous administration sacked a government official under these circumstances, Congress and its media enablers (or vice versa) would be demanding a special prosecutor and a full investigation of cronyism:
An inspector general fired by President Barack Obama said Friday he acted "with the highest integrity" in investigating AmeriCorps and other government-funded national service programs. Gerald Walpin said in an interview with The Associated Press that he reported facts and conclusions "in an honest and full way" while serving as inspector general at the Corporation for National and Community Service.
In a letter to Congress on Thursday, Obama said he had lost confidence in Walpin and was removing him from the position.
Walpin defended his work on Friday. "I know that I and my office acted with the highest integrity as an independent inspector general should act," he said.
Obama's move follows an investigation by Walpin finding misuse of federal grants by a nonprofit education group led by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, who is an Obama supporter and former NBA basketball star. Johnson and a nonprofit education academy he founded ultimately agree to repay half of $847,000 in grants it had received from AmeriCorps.
More on "Walpin-gate" here and here. Under the 2008 Inspector Generals Reform Act that then-Senator Obama sponsored, the president is required to give Congress 30-days notice before removing or transferring an inspector general.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Military Objected To Detainee Transfers, Kind Of

The Washington Times has this exclusive:
Military intelligence officials have quietly told Congress they advised against transferring 25 of the 60 Guantanamo Bay terror detainees deemed eligible for relocation by the Obama administration, including five who are considered to be highly dangerous and likely to return to the battlefield.
But the Defense Intelligence Agency officials did not raise any formal objections with the administration because they concluded the decision to move prisoners already had been made, according to a letter Sen. Tom Coburn, a member of the intelligence committee, sent Tuesday to Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair.
Sen. Coburn wonders if the White House put political considerations ahead of national security. Don't we all.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Do We Want Captured Terrorists to Remain Silent?

Someone once said that the dialogue in the Law & Order television series sounded like ACLU talking points (we don't watch the show, so we're unable to determine if that allegation is on target). However, the Obama administration seems to want to fight the war on terror as if it is orchestrated by a L&O scriptwriter, which is precisely the wrong approach. The guiding principle should be the law of armed conflict, not the law enforcement model. The Weekly Standard reports the following:
For, the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “The administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement. Here’s the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today – foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them…and they’re reading them their rights – Mirandizing these foreign fighters,” says Representative Mike Rogers, who recently met with military, intelligence and law enforcement officials on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.
Rogers, a former FBI special agent and U.S. Army officer, says the Obama administration has not briefed Congress on the new policy. “I was a little surprised to find it taking place when I showed up because we hadn’t been briefed on it, I didn’t know about it. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of it, but it is clearly a part of this new global justice initiative...”
One thing is clear, though. A detainee who is not talking cannot provide information about future attacks. Had Khalid Sheikh Mohammad had a lawyer, [former CIA Director] Tenet wrote, “I am confident that we would have obtained none of the information he had in his head about imminent threats against the American people.”
Separately, former USA Today columnist Richard Benedetto joins several other pundits to raise questions about the disproportionate coverage of the abortion doctor killing vs. the terrorist shooting at the military recruitment center in Little Rock:
Which is more newsworthy — the murder of an abortion doctor in Wichita, Kan., by an alleged anti-abortion activist or the murder of an Army recruiter and the wounding of another in Little Rock, Ark., by an alleged Muslim convert who is said to hate the U.S. military?
Most people not involved in news-placement decisions would probably say they were equally newsworthy. But those in the news media actually making those decisions had a different view.
According to the way the two stories were played last week in the American mainstream news media, the shooting of the abortion doctor was far more newsworthy than the shooting of the two young soldiers, even though the two incidents occurred within one day of each other and seemed to follow a similar pattern: Both men were killed by men allegedly acting out their political, religious and moral disagreements with their victims.
The response from the commander in chief to the murder of Private Long was surprisingly muted too:
Even President Barack Obama apparently was more appalled by the killing of the abortion doctor than the Army shootings. Within hours of the doctor’s murder, he issued an official statement: “I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning.It took the commander in chief two days to issue a statement on the shooting of the soldiers.
Meantime, a gunman opened fire today at the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

$12 Million Per Detainee

The Uighurs are finally on the move according to the AP. The small Pacific island nation of Palau has apparently agreed to take them:
Palau agreed to accept 17 Chinese Muslims who have languished in legal limbo at Guantanamo Bay, indicating a resolution to one of the major obstacles to closing the U.S. prison camp.
The announcement Wednesday by the Pacific archipelago, which would clear the last of the Uighurs from the camp in Cuba, was a major step toward the Obama administration's goal of finding new homes for detainees who have been cleared of wrongdoing but cannot go home for fear of ill-treatment...
President Johnson Toribiong said the decision of Palau, one of a handful of countries that does not recognize China and maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan, was "a humanitarian gesture" intended to help the detainees restart their lives. His archipelago, with a population of about 20,000, will accept up to 17 of the detainees subject to periodic review, Toribiong said in a statement released to The Associated Press...
Two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. was prepared to give Palau up to $200 million in development, budget support and other assistance in return for accepting the Uighurs and as part of a mutual defense and cooperation treaty that is due to be renegotiated this year.
Update: Bermuda is the new home of four of the detainees.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Middle East Hypocrisy

Despite massive human rights violations perpetrated by despotic regimes around the world, everyone from useful idiots like Tom Brokaw (more about that below) and other talking heads, to current and past U.S. presidential administrations, to the entire diplomatic bureaucracy of the UN and the EU, seem to be obsessed by make-believe allegations against the state of Israel.

The Jewish state, a heretofore stalwart U.S. ally in the war on terror, is a tiny country about the size of New Jersey--which global political elites are hell-bent on making smaller--that serves as the only democracy in the Middle East. Like the U.S., it has it flaws, including corruption and political infighting. But it's the only country in that region where Arabs and non-Arabs alike enjoy full civil and religious rights (there are mosques in Tel Aviv, for example). And unlike each and every one of its neighbors, it has a freely elected government and a productive market economy.

Two independent states side by side? The idea that the so-called two-state solution would cause all terrorists to immediately cease and desist is another way of saying... the check is in the mail.

As analyzed by Stratfor (see prior post), even the Arab regimes, despite all the rhetoric, are only going through the motions in supporting a Palestinian state. For its own reasons, the UN has created a very fluid definition of refugee that only applies to Palestinians and their descendants, but would there be a refugee crisis in the first place if the Arabs had not conducted numerous wars against Israel?

With that in mind, Big Hollywood columnist Bert Prelutsky observes the following:
In a speech delivered in Norway, [Yelena Bonner, the widow of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov] pointed out that the Palestinians are still being referred to as refugees even though only a tiny percentage of them have ever even set foot in Israel. According to my dictionary, and I assume Ms. Bonner’s, a refugee is someone who has fled from violence and wars. How on earth can the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who left Israel in order to avoid being killed or injured by the invading Arab forces in 1948, 61 long years ago, be regarded as refugees?
Oh, and does the right of return apply to the hundreds of thousands of Jews that had to flee for the lives from Arab countries?

On Friday, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer cut through the hypocrisy:
President Obama repeatedly insists that American foreign policy be conducted with modesty and humility. Above all, there will be no more "dictating" to other countries. We should "forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions," he told the G-20 summit. In Middle East negotiations, he told al-Arabiya, America will henceforth "start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating."
An admirable sentiment. It applies to everyone -- Iran, Russia, Cuba, Syria, even Venezuela. Except Israel. Israel is ordered to freeze all settlement activity. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton imperiously explained the diktat: "a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions..."
In his much-heralded "Muslim world" address in Cairo yesterday, Obama declared that the Palestinian people's "situation" is "intolerable." Indeed it is, the result of 60 years of Palestinian leadership that gave its people corruption, tyranny, religious intolerance and forced militarization; leadership that for three generations rejected every offer of independence and dignity, choosing destitution and despair rather than accept any settlement not accompanied by the extinction of Israel.
In the 16 years since the Oslo accords turned the West Bank and Gaza over to the Palestinians, their leaders built no roads, no courthouses, no hospitals, none of the fundamental state institutions that would relieve their people's suffering. Instead they poured everything into an infrastructure of war and terror, all the while depositing billions (from gullible Western donors) into their Swiss bank accounts.
Again, for all the rhetorical concern over the plight of the Palestinians over all these years, why does the UN, the Arab world generally, and other agencies force these poor people to live in refugee camps and under other intolerable conditions rather than absorbing them within the vast landmass of the 21 Arab countries?

Perhaps the most cogent summary of the worldwide anti-Israel hypocrisy was written not by a Middle East scholar or a university egghead. It was instead written in 2002 by comedian/character actor Larry Miller. Miller has appeared on many TV shows (such as Seinfeld) and movies, including a hilarious portrayal of the minister in the romantic comedy A Guy Thing. Miller's piece can be found here.

Just asking, but did the UN pass a stream of vitriolic resolutions against Jordan when it controlled the West Bank? In a Washington Times editorial, super Clinton/Obama apologist Lanny Davis (you probably have seen him making the rounds of the Cable news channels) even noted the following:
Between 1947 and 1967, Arab nations at any time could have declared a Palestinian state, as Jordan controlled all the West Bank and East Jerusalem during that time period, including the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, and the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and Egypt controlled all of Gaza. Why didn't they?
The West Bank and Gaza were "occupied" (as was the Golan Heights) only after Israel was attacked by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt in 1967, with its very existence threatened.
Which brings us to the disgusting and stunningly ignorant question posed to Obama by Tom Brokaw of NBC News (we refuse to embed the interview here, but it is readily available online) at Buchenwald. Brokaw asked Obama what Israel can learn from Obama's Buchenwald visit in relation to their treatment of the Palestinians. To Obama's credit, he rejected the premise of Brokaw's question. But Brokaw, the so-called hardnews journalist, really needs to get out more--or do some homework rather than listening to the what the producer is telling him in his earpiece. He owes an immediate apology for one thing to the families of the Israeli soldiers who have been sacrificed (perhaps sacrificed is too strong a word) in the name of reducing civilian casualties. Other than the U.S. military, no other army in the world exercises more restraint the Israeli military despite constant terrorist attacks against the Israeli people.

By the way, Obama's uncle, the World War II GI who helped liberate the Buchenwald death camp (which Obama initially misidentified as Auschwitz), thinks the visit is just a another part of the permanent campaign.
“This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I'm sure, but for political reasons,” Charles Payne told the German magazine Spiegel. “Perhaps his visit also has something to do with improving his standing with (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel. She gave him a hard time during his campaign and also afterwards.”
Obama does seem determined to force Israel into unilateral assured destruction, especially with his recent comment that Iran has the "right" to develop nuclear facilities. Obama's leverage over the country is primarily financial, so perhaps it's time for Israel in its own interest to get off the U.S. dole once and for all. Prime Minister Netanyahu is due to make a major speech this week. Stay tuned.

Update:In his June 14 speech, Netanyahu acknowledged the ultimate goal of two states living side by side as "good neighbors with mutual respect, each with its own flag and national anthem."
Mr. Netanyahu went further than any leader of the Likud party in recognizing the need for a Palestinian state, but he placed two conditions: that the United States gives a guarantee that it remain demilitarized and that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

DOJ: ACORN-Occupied Territory

Unless somebody has their head totally in the sand, a big part of the Democrats' electoral success revolves around voter irregularities if not out-and-out fraud (case in point: the disputed Minnesota senate election), involving ACORN and other shadowy organizations. Isn't it troubling that far-less developed countries around the world have more secure voter-identification procedures?

As we noted in a previous post, to much hand-wringing, the Bush administration allegedly politicized the U.S. Justice Department, but this DOJ pronouncement appears to be blatantly political:
The Justice Department has rejected Georgia's system of using Social Security numbers and driver's license data to check whether prospective voters are citizens, a process that was a subject of a federal lawsuit in the weeks leading up to November's election.
In a letter released on Monday, the Justice Department said the state's voter verification program is frequently inaccurate and has a "discriminatory effect" on minority voters. The decision means Georgia must halt the citizenship checks, although the state can still ask the Justice Department to reconsider, according to the letter and to the Georgia secretary of state's office.
Isn't it about time, in the year 2009 with all the advance technology readily available, that officials and so-called civil liberties group stop playing the "discriminatory effect" card and concentrate on making sure to uphold the rule of law such that every legal vote counts?

Monday, June 1, 2009

Questions for Judge Sotomayor

To assist the Senate Judiciary Committee with its prep work for the upcoming confirmation hearing, here are few suggested questions for Judge Sotomayor:

● President Bush nominated Miguel Estrada to the D.C. Circuit, but your allies on Capitol Hill refused to grant him an up-or-down vote. What is your opinion on the filibuster conducted against a highly qualified Hispanic nominee?

● Why did you dismiss the New Haven Firefighters appeal in a one-page order?

● Do you think it was appropriate for then-Senator Obama to filibuster the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito?

● Who should decide whether to legalize gay marriage--judges or the voters through the referendum process?

● According to the media [as predicted in this blog], you are a moderate/centrist. If accurate, please explain your moderate/centrist judicial philosophy.

● Are you pro-choice when it comes to the Second Amendment?

● Should voters be required to produce a photo ID to cast a ballot?